Chronos Chess Clocks are Back!!!

The fact is that the buttons on the Chronos II are solid and stable. I have one that I have played Blitz with for 13+ years now with the buttons operating as well with the same action as when they were new and also compared to my newer Chronos clocks.

Of course everyone should feel free to modify products they own to make those products more palatable for the owner

Every statement I make is significant relative to my post, else I wouldn't make it in the first place.

The fact is that the buttons on the Chronos II are solid and stable. I have one that I have played Blitz with for 13+ years now with the buttons operating as well with the same action as when they were new and also compared to my newer Chronos clocks.

Not as solid and stable as they could be. The stock buttons sit above the top of the clock with no shroud, which makes them succeptible to damage from side impacts due to leverage (arcade buttons have no such succeptibility; they sit low and are mostly shrouded). Can you imagine installing those keyboard buttons on a Defender, Galaga, Donkey Kong, etc., in a big city arcade in the early 1980s, or in a Street Fighter II or Mortal Kombat in the early 1990s? They'd be lucky to last a week.

I have a Super Punch-Out machine (Nintendo, 1984 - http://i.imgur.com/czUKSy8.jpg), which has 3 buttons (the big blue one [Omron ZAP-2A] being an extra heavy-duty design), and a 5-way joystick, for a total of 8 microswitches, and all of them are still the original Omron brand microswitches that Nintendo installed in 1984, and they all work perfectly. This machine spent nearly 20 years on location in various commercial arcades before I acquired it in 2005 (it's had a very easy life since then).

Of course everyone should feel free to modify products they own to make those products more palatable for the owner

It is what they should have used in the first place. I know of no momentary switch/button design which can take as much of a beating as an arcade button, and which is so easy and inexpensive to replace (either the whole assembly or, because it is modular, just the microswitch).

The new design clock from ACE sounds interesting. However if one needs a clock now I can't see what is wrong with getting a chronos for under $100 with the 15% discount and free shipping as the new clock may be a while in production. When you have tooling etc. even packaging issues involved in selling the end product experience seems to show that the intention is good in nature that these will be available soon but I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't ready till 2016 (the production models). Usuaally even a single sided PCB board costs bucks for tooling so I am guessing the first run might be 500 units to spread out the start up costs.

Of course you're right Mike. I just went to Wholesale Chess and saw they still have Chronos clocks available. Seeing that the new "pig in a poke" clock is still an unknown regarding price, quality and time of availability Getting a Chronos now at the lesser price is a good idea.

I already have a few Chronos clocks, three, so I'm in no hurry to get one. That's why I can wait for this new one. And someone in this thread mentioned not being in a hurry to get one, that's why I talked about waiting.

When available, the Chronos is still the best clock out there, in my opinion.

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